


Falling In Love Is Easily The Hardest Thing

by Softboyshawn



Category: Shawn Mendes (Musician)
Genre: F/M, personal assistant - alternate universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 12:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Softboyshawn/pseuds/Softboyshawn
Summary: Summary: You’re Shawn’s long time personal assistant. He’s freaking out about the album coming out in a few days. You accidentally say you love him while trying to talk him down. It’s okay though, because he loves you too.





	1. Falling In Love Is Easily The Hardest Thing

Loving Shawn is sleeping on the floor of studios because it’s past midnight and you’re exhausted but you don’t want to leave him. It’s carrying water bottles around in your backpacks and purses because he always forgets them. It’s listening to him practice the same lyrics over and over in hallways, bathrooms, and empty ballrooms. It’s living out of suitcases, backpacks and duffel bags for months at a time. Taking planes, buses and shuttles at all hours of the night to everywhere in the world. It’s staying up until the sun breaks over the horizon because he can’t sleep due to nerves, anxiety, or insecurity. Sometimes all three. It’s talking him down from the stress of it all and not letting him say fuck it all at four in the morning at in a hotel room in Brazil. It’s being there for him when he gets frustrated and can’t hit notes, when he can’t get a melody right, when he can’t focus. It’s staying up late, spending all day listening to songs he’ll never record, or songs he wants to get inspiration from. It’s rubbing his throat when he’s strained himself and massaging his hands when he’s played guitar for six hours straight. Loving Shawn is easily the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but then again that’s what love is, and you wouldn’t trade it for the world.

________________

“I’m freaking out,” Shawn says calmly from the couch beside you. He is completely still, guitar on his lap, head lent back against the cushion. Nothing about him reads as a freak out, and you know freak outs.

“You sure?” You chuckle, looking him over again. Nope. Looks okay.

Shawn turns his head and stares at you. “I think I’m gonna die. I’m pretty sure my heart is gonna pound out of my chest and I’m just gonna die.”

You look over at a couple of the guys from the band who are hanging out on the couch opposite you. They get the hint and leave, closing the door to the room behind them. “What’s going on, why are you freaking out?” you ask, situating yourself so you’re facing him.

“The album drops in two days. I’ve got nerves on my nerves. What if it’s not good enough? What if it’s too different and fans hate it?” He runs his hands through his hair and tugs. “Fuck, what if I peaked with Illuminate? What if I’m nineteen and I peaked?”

“Shawn,” you say in that soft, low, almost purr like voice that you only used when he was freaking out. He knows this voice and he knows it means he needs to listen to you. “You’re in your head. The album is amazing, you’re amazing. People are going to love the new sounds, they’re going to love it because it’s you. Believe me. I’ve been here for every step of the way and I can tell you that I love it and…and I love you.”

“Why’d you pause like that?”

“What do you mean?”

Shawn sets his guitar beside the couch and turns to sit sideways, facing you. “Before you said “and I love you" you stopped, well, paused. Why?”

You shrug. “I was just collecting my thoughts I guess.” Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. You fucked up. You fucked up and said the words you’ve been trying to fight for months. The words that made your heart flip, soar, clench and stop all at once. The words you never thought you’d say out loud and especially not to him. The words you thought you could never say to him, yet here you are.

“Are you sure? Because you know you can tell me anything. I promise it stays between us, you know that.”

“I know Shawn,” you mutter, leaning against the cushion, avoiding eye contact. God you are an open book and you don’t know how to shut it around Shawn. “I guess I just wasn’t sure how to say it because I’ve never said that before.”

“You’ve never said I love you?”

“Not to you, well not to anyone outside my family really.”

Shawn leans against the couch and folds his arms over his chest. “Well, guess I’m pretty special,” he smiles, those kind soft brown eyes crinkling and that breathy little chuckle coming out. It was no wonder you fell in love with him. “You’re pretty special too y'know.”

“Yeah? How?”

“Because I love you too.”

“Oh come on Shawn,” you roll your eyes. He is just being his polite self, returning the compliment as he always did. There wasn’t an unkind bone in this man’s body, you’re pretty sure. “You love everyone. Jake, Andrew, Geoff and Brian. You’re like an eternal love giver, of course you love me.”

Shawn goes soft, his face goes into that quiet serious but gentle expression you only saw when he was in his feelings. It wasn’t often, but it was one you were familiar enough with. His eyes say a thousand words, they write a whole novel, but you can’t decipher a single thing. “I don’t love them like I love you.”

“I’m not sure I get what you-”

“I think you do.”

“Shawn, no. I’m not the one who you’re supposed to fall in love with. I’m not the one who’s going to have songs written about her one day.”

Shawn chuckles softly. “You have no idea do you?”

You furrow your eyebrows. “No idea about what?”

Shawn leans back, sitting with his head back on the cushions again, staring at the ceiling. His cheeks are bright pink, flushed like he’s embarrassed. “What is the one song on the album that you weren’t around with me to write?”

“I don’t know,” you laugh. How did he expect you to remember which of like fifty songs you weren’t around for. You passed out a lot, caught later flights sometimes. There were things you missed here and there.

“No, you know. Remember, when you listened to the rough cut?”

“Uhh, yeah,” you close your eyes, trying to remember like a month and a half ago. The night you stayed up until two in the morning with him in his hotel room listening to the album. “It’s that one, Falling For You? The one Ed sent you?”

“Fallin All In. He didn’t just send it to me. We wrote it together the night I flew into London and you were still in Toronto for your mom’s birthday.”

“So?”

“So, it’s about you,” Shawn laughs, eyes still on the ceiling. His leg is doing that nervous bouncy thing that he did before shows. “It’s about you and I had to fight to keep it on the album when Andrew found out.”

“What.”

Shawn’s trembling as he looks at you. “I told Ed how I’ve felt about you for a long time, just started talking about everything I’ve ever imagined with you really. Ed just started writing lyrics and it just went from there.”

You sit there, stunned silent. This whole time he hid his feelings the same way you had. How long had you just gone on hurting, aching, wanting each other and for no reason. It was like standing on either side of fogged glass, suspecting the other might be on just the other side, but not being sure, not being able to see clearly, never being bold enough to just wipe the glass and see.

“It’s okay if you don’t love me. It is fine really. I never thought I’d find someone so quickly in my life and it’s probably ridiculous but if-”

“Shawn.” He looks over, tears in his eyes like his heart has already been broken. “I love you too. I know we’ve never been physically intimate and I mean it’s not to say I don’t want to be. I just I feel like that’s maybe something we should experience before saying I love you but I guess we really don’t have to and mmm-!”

Shawn leans forward and kisses you, simple lips on lips. Eyes open, pleading with you silently that it was okay. And it is. It’s more than okay. You bring your hands up and hold his face. He smiles against your lips and it’s the sweetest thing as he chases that smile into another kiss. He pushes you back a bit until you’re laying down, head on the arm of the couch. He holds himself up over you, loose curls, long and unruly, fall down and tickle your forehead.

“I wrote Perfectly Wrong about you too,” he mumbles, pressing his forehead against yours. “Remember when I got drunk with Teddy and Scott that night at The Woodshed studio in Malibu?”

“Yeah, the day you and I fell asleep together after the beach. How could I forget, your cheeks were so red from the fireball shots and you wouldn’t let me go to bed and I had to kick you out of my room so I could sleep.”

“I was pretty fucked up. I was hurting and I was doing it to myself thinking about you. I think I knew then, after we wrote that song. I knew I was in love.”

You run your hand through his hair, fingers tangling a bit in the product he used. It was soft nonetheless. “For me it was when you were getting ready for the Time 100 awards. When we were backstage and you were pacing, on the edge of a panic attack and I grabbed you and pulled you aside. I didn’t know what to do so I grabbed your face and made you focus on me instead of the crowd. The way your eyes searched mine, the way you trusted me completely as you relaxed and found your focus again…I’ll never forget.”

“Why did we wait?” he asks, sighing softly. “Why were we so stupid?”

“I don’t know, but I do know you have an interview to go to right now, and a set to play after,” you smile, patting his cheek. “And in two days, everyone’s going to love you as much as I do.”

He grins and pushes up off the couch. “Yeah and in two days everyone’s going to know how much I love you.”

“Let’s keep them guessing for a while though.”

“Sounds good to me,” you chuckle, shooing him away. You glance up from your phone at a bit of movement a second later, startling a bit cuz you thought he had gone. He just leans on the doors to the hall and looks over at you. “What?”

“I’m playing Fallin All In tonight, the guys already helped me plan it out since Andrew didn’t want me to. I’m playing Lost first then Nervous and then Fallin.”

“But why?”

“Because I was going to tell you tonight.”

You shake your head. “Tell me what?”

Shawn does his weird little shoulder hunch and chuckle that he did when he was nervous sometimes. “I was going to tell you that I love you tonight, that’s why I was freaking out. It’s not because the album. I’m nervous about the album, confident, but nervous. It’s not why I was freaking out though.”

“Oh.”

“You beat me to it, foiled my plans.”

“I did.”

Shawn smiles and opens the door to go out. “I’ll see you after?”

“Of course. Where else would I be?”

He shrugs and smiles as he says, “I love you,” in the softest, sweetest voice ever. Like it was a secret and he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

“Get out of here!” you giggle, looking down as you shake your head at his cuteness. “Wait!” You call out before he can get too far and he pops right back in as you grin. “I love you too,” you whisper back in the same way he had. He just smiles and you know that this was going to be the start of everything both of you had ever wanted.


	2. I Love Everything About You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: You and Shawn have been together for six months now. He knows you struggle with insecurity and he is there for you every step of the way.

Insecurity. It’s a bitch. It consumes you, invades your thoughts, poisons your brain and brings the world crashing down around you. It wraps around you, gripping your stomach and making you sick. But it’s not until it meets jealousy that it becomes a real monster. Devouring you, making you sob and fight with everything and everyone around you for signs of validation. Signs that your good enough, that you’re worthy of being loved, that you don’t have to worry. Insecurity and jealousy are nasty beasts that pull you into the dark but Shawn is eternal sunshine and he washes them away, even if it takes a little time.

It’s happening, again, and you hate it. The familiar bile rising in your throat, stomach clenching, the weight of insecurity perched upon your back like the demon it is. It whispers lies, lies that you believe every time.

“She’s prettier than you.” “He going to leave you for her.” “No one loves their assistant.” “He’s lying, he’s lonely and that’s all.”

You bite back tears as they sting your eyes. No. Not right now, not today. You bring your arms around yourself, holding tight, fingers digging into your soft sides and that makes your grip harder. You were too soft bodied, too flawed for someone like Shawn.

“This way,” an assistant named Bruce says as he leads Shawn towards his dressing room. You follow behind silently, black bag thumping against your butt as you walk. Every little thing reminds you of your imperfections. The bag hits your butt, it’s too big. You grip your sides, they’re too soft. You pass a model as she goes towards the dressing room for the show and her hair is perfectly feathered, billowing in the wind. Yours is in a braid down the back, probably crooked and you know you need to trim your ends. Everything sucks. You want to go back to the hotel.

“Someone will be in shortly,” Bruce says and closes the door on you and Shawn. Shawn turns around to see you standing there, visibly plagued by the demon on your back, eyes red and tired from listening to it’s lies again. He knows how you struggle, and more so now that you’re a couple.

“Honey,” he says softly, dropping his guitar case on the couch before wrapping his arms around you. His soft voice is all it takes to break the barrier you’ve been holding up. Tears spill over, wetting your cheeks and his tee. “Talk to me about it, don’t hold back,” he whispers into your hair, leading you to sit on the couch with him.

“I’m not as good as these girls here. Why would you want me when there are dozens of models walking around in panties, eyes on you like hungry lionesses. What am I compared to them? Why wouldn’t you want someone perfect?” You take in a shaky breath and tremble in his arms.

“I’m not interested in these women just because they’re in panties. They’re just people doing their jobs, just like I’m going to do my job and sing for their show.” Shawn tucks your hair behind your ear and you lean into his touch. “I’ll be looking for you like I always do because you’re my home, my safety, my girl. If anything I’ll be thinking about you in those panties because I love your soft hips and your legs and…” He groans, pulling you closer. “Honey, those girls have nothing I want. You don’t compare to them because they are nothing like you. No one is like you. No one can turn me on or bring me to my knees like you. No one can make my stomach flip and my heart ache like you do. Let them look at me, let them be hungry for me. They can’t have me because I’m already taken.”

“You like my legs?” You sniff, looking up at him. You hate how pitiful you must look.

Shawn steps back and lowers himself to his knees in front of you. Your raise your eyebrows and he smiles softly. He runs his hands over the backs of your calves in your faded black jeans, traveling up to your thighs, he leans in and kisses your upper thighs and up to your hips. His hands slide over your butt and stop, grip, and slide around so he is holding your hips. He kisses his way up to meet his hands and smiles big. “I don’t like your legs, I love them. I love how soft and smooth they are when you’re in your underwear. I love how warm and comfy they are when I lay my head on them. I love gripping them when we’re in bed and you’re on your hands and knees and I’m e-”

“Shawn!” You hiss, chastising him, and he looks at you with a smug smile. He was never one to talk openly about what you did in the bedroom together. It brought a surge of excitement crashing over you and acted as a welcome distraction from your thoughts.

Shawn pushes himself up, placing kisses up your stomach and chest as he reaches his full height. “Listen, I love you. I love every piece of you and I wouldn’t change anything ever. It’s been six months we’ve been together and over two years since we’ve known each other. I think we both know what we’ve signed up for.”

“You’re right,” you wrap your arms around him and he pulls you in close for another hug, hand on your back, rubbing slowly. “Maybe one day I’ll be content with myself.”

“And I’ll be here until you are and then after. I promise.” He drops a kiss on your head and turns to look at the door when someone knocks. It’s the stylist for the show and you pull away to sit on the couch and go over his schedule for the next week until it was time for him to go on stage.

_____________

Watching Shawn interact with the models on stage should be easier since you had your talk in the dressing room but it isn’t. Not at first. You’re standing just behind the curtain where the ladies walk out and you can see them strut past Shawn and blow kisses and smile at him. He doesn’t reciprocate and just smiles as he performs. You don’t realize you’re scowling until Winnie, a model and friend of Shawn’s, says something to you as she waits to go on stage.

“Your face is gonna freeze like that,” she chuckles and you turn to see her. She’s in a pink and yellow floral outfit with a cut out around her stomach. It’s gorgeous. She’s gorgeous. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just thinking.”

Winnie rolls her eyes. “I know jealousy when I see it. Does Shawn know you’re worried about this?”

“Yeah. We talked about it.”

“Then why are you worried? If you are that open with Shawn, he is definitely in love with you. You have him wrapped around your finger.”

“Winnie you’re on,” a voice beside you says and Winnie puts her arm around you in a quick hug.

“He’s going home with you tonight, don’t forget that.”

You watch as she walks the catwalk towards Shawn. She is flawless, steps perfect and controlled. Everything about her screams goddess. She passes Shawn, smiling and says something, looking back toward you. Shawn turns and looks at the entry to the catwalk and winks. He knows you can see him even if he can’t quite see you. It makes your heart race and you flush. It was amazing how easily he could make you temporarily forget your flaws and feel like the only girl in a room.

___________

Shawn jogs off stage, handing his guitar to someone as he walks over and picks you up, spinning you around from where you’re talking to another model named Haley who you’d met before at a few events. “Did I kill it?” Shawn asks, face pressed into your hair.

“Yes of course you did.” You wave goodbye to Haley who is being pulled away by another model for pictures. “It was a great set. I think everyone had a good time.”

“Did you see me wink at you?”

“Yes, how could I have missed it? You know you can’t wink. I can’t wait to see photos of that all over social media.” You giggle and he rolls his eyes.

“Anyway I heard that there are grab bags for everyone at the after party. The ladies get lingerie and other gifts in their bags.” Shawn raises his eyebrows suggestively. “I’d kill to see you in them.”

“Yeah? What color?”

“Red? Pink… black with lace,” Shawn says spacing off probably thinking about you in any of sets that were shown while you head to the dressing room to gather your things. “I’m gonna be honest honey I’m ready to go back to the hotel and skip the after party. I just want to be with you.”

You lay your hand on his chest and shake your head as the door closes behind you. “No, I want free lingerie. We’re going.”

“Fine but under one condition,” he walks you back the couch and holds your hips, thumbs rubbing against your skin softly under your shirt. “I want my own personal show at the hotel.”

“No touching? Just looking?”

“Oh no there will be plenty of touching. I’m thinking maybe even a different position for each outfit and maybe ending up together in that huge tub in my suite.”

“Alright deal but you have to be extra talkative and tell me how good I look in them.”

Shawn nods. “I’ll never shut up.” You laugh and he leans down to kiss you, hand in your hair and one on your side. “I love you,” he smiles into the kiss and you giggle, wrapping your arms around him.

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Note:
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave Kudos, comments and more! 
> 
> Find me also at softboyshawn on Tumblr and adubs91593 on Wattpad


	3. Snowballs and Soft Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Shawn gets some fake snowballs and terrorizes everyone at any chance he gets. You finally have had enough of it and decide to get revenge with real snowballs. [fluff] Part of the Falling In Love Is Easily The Hardest Thing Series.

Shawn is a menace. Over the last two years as his assistant and more recently, girlfriend, you’ve learned that if you let him go shopping alone when he is bored he comes back with the most off the wall things. Once it was a nutribullet. He claimed he needed it for his protein shakes. It sat in his cupboard for nine months unopened. Another time it was a Roomba. Perfect for the guy who is never home and can’t remember to do his own laundry let alone turn on a robot to vacuum his perfectly clean floors. Last month he came waltzing on to the tour bus somewhere in Texas with a bag full of men’s body wash and lotion from some high end store when he has a shower bag full of them already.

This time he shows up with something far less expensive than his last ventures, but by far the most annoying. Fake snowballs. Yeah. Little fluffy partially filled white fabric balls. Why? Well as Shawn put it “I miss snowball fights and half time I’m not home anymore while there is snow on the ground.” Immediately you knew this was going to be hell, and you were absolutely right.

Every chance Shawn got he was pelting people with those little snowballs. Backstage? Perfect for a snowball fight. Green room? Time to lob them at each other over the couches. Empty arena? More like a battle ground. Tour Bus? Oh you can bet you woke up with him tossing them across the isle trying to wake you up or bother you while you worked on your laptop. The guy was a menace, a giggly overgrown child and half the crew was no better. They almost always joined in or egged him on.

After a solid month of shenanigans you’d had enough. You had taken countless snowballs to the face, the chest, the back of the head. You had cleaned up a number of spilled cans and broken cups. It was time for revenge. The tour but had left late in the evening after a later show and was headed for Minnesota for Shawn to play his last show on Christmas Eve before a week long break. You’re curled up with him in his bunk, barely any room to move, and you can see one of the snowballs sitting on the bed across the aisle. That’s when you decide that it’s time for revenge, as you stare at that obnoxious little fluff ball and it mocks you. No, you wouldn’t steal his fake snowballs for revenge, you want real snow.

You pull out your phone and bring up the weather app. You type in the bus’s destination and find that when you arrive it should be snowing and there is already plenty fallen as well. Perfect. You wiggle back against Shawn and he groans, pulling you tighter against him. He mumbles a sleepy “I love you” and smooches the back of your head. So soft. He had no idea what was instore for him when you stopped but you’d let him rest for now.

Morning, half past eight and you slip out of Shawn’s hold. Your back is stiff and legs sore from being crammed into the single bunk all night with a giant man. You quietly get your boots on, grab a sweater of Shawn’s and pull your coat on over it. There are gloves in the pockets and you slide them on as you head for the door.

Outside is a blanket of white. A real winter wonderland fit for a Christmas card. Right away you start making snowballs, stacking them by the end of the bus and waiting for Shawn to wake up. It doesn’t take long before you have a dozen or more balls and Shawn is texting you, wanting to know where his cuddle buddy is. He always hated waking up without you these days.

“Come to the arena. I’m helping out backstage.” You send him and he says he’s on his way. He is falling into your trap perfectly.

The door to the bus opens a few minutes later and Shawn steps out in his sherpa lined denim jacket, a sweater, his green flannel pants tucked into his socks and his boots he wore every day. A fashion disaster and one hundred percent Shawn when he wasn’t making a public appearance. Such a boy. You whistle and he turns to find the source of the noise. His hair is mussed up and his face still has bed wrinkle lines still on it. You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you.

“I thought you said-” he stops mid sentence as you lob a snowball at him and it explodes across his cheek. The snow was a little powdery so you’re impressed that it even made it to him without falling apart.

“That’s payback,” you grin, packing a second ball from your pile in your hands. “How you like that snowball?”

“Oh you little shit,” Shawn says with the biggest smile. He scoops up some snow and balls it in his bare hands. You throw yours and he throws his. Both miss, his thumping against the side of the bus.

“Hey! That was too hard!” You throw another and it smacks square in his chest. “I call rough play!”

“Oh I’ll show you rough play!” He runs toward you and you run out into the snow behind the bus. He chases you, slipping in his old treadless boots as you barely stay just out of reach for a few seconds. He grabs you, taking you down into a snow pile at the edge of the backlot of the arena where snow plows had cleared the driveways.

“Shawn!” You squeal as he pins you into the cold pile. “No fair.”

“It’s not fair that you ambushed me either.” He stares down at you, nose red from the cold, breath coming out in little white puffs. “If you didn’t like my snowball fights you could have just said so.”

“I didn’t wanna hurt your feelings though. You were having so much fun.”

“Well yeah but I could have stopped bothering you with them. I’m sorry babe.” He presses a little kiss to your cold nose. “I missed being home at this time of year. Plus you’re really cute when you’re flustered.” He smiles cheekily.

“Oh you don’t need to butter me up you goofball. But I am sorry I ambushed you.”

Shawn sits up on his knees, straddling your legs. “It’s okay. I would have won that fight, ambush or not.”

“Oh yeah? You don’t even have on appropriate clothing. You would have froze to death.”

Shawn huffs. “Well I guess I’ll have to challenge you to a real snowball fight when we get home and I have my coat and gloves and everything.”

“You’re going to your parents place aren’t you?” You start to sit up and he pulls you up right and starts helping brush the snow out of your hair.

“I was actually wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

“To meet your family?”

Shawn nods. He stands and brushes his pants off before he steps out onto the shallower snow outside the pile. He tucks his hands under his arms and looks down as if he were nervous about this conversation. “I was hoping we could spend Christmas together, y'know, since your parents are going to be on vacation anyway. If you have other plans just-”

“I’d love to. I’d love to meet your parents.” You wrap your arms around him and he sighs heavily, arms wrapping around you in return. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to do anything together for Christmas and I didn’t want to ask since I know it’s a big thing for your family.”

“You’re my family too now,” Shawn says quietly, looking down at you. “I wouldn’t want you not to be there. Besides, I already told my mom you were coming so you kinda have to.”

“I can’t wait,” you giggle. You know his family goes all out for Christmas and it’s always a huge party. You also know his mom is awesome at gift giving so that makes you even more excited.

“Can we go back to the bus now? I’m freezing and my toes hurt they’re so cold.”

You nod. “But no more snowballs, got it?”

Shawn holds his hands up in defense. “I promise. No more.”

“Alright, come on then. Let’s watch a movie and warm up until the guys come find us for soundcheck.”

Shawn wraps his arms around you from behind and walks with you to the bus, snow crunching loudly with every step. He presses his face into your hair, warming his cold cheeks and nose as he mumbles, “That sounds like a good plan. Have I told you how much I love you?”

“Only everyday since we admitted our feelings for each other?”

“Mmm. Can’t miss today then.” He kisses the side if your cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you more,” you giggle, your usual response.

He shakes his head, giving you another kiss on the cheek. “I love you most.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Note:
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave Kudos, comments and more! 
> 
> Find me also at softboyshawn on Tumblr and adubs91593 on Wattpad

**Author's Note:**

> Author Note:
> 
> Thank you for reading! Please leave Kudos, comments and more! 
> 
> Find me also at softboyshawn on Tumblr and adubs91593 on Wattpad


End file.
